Consumers may be complaining about the MyFord Touch system, but that hasn’t dissuaded CEO Alan Mulally from continuing to focus on in-vehicle electronics as a key way to connect with buyers.

The CEO conceded that Ford might have overlooked voice controls and depended far too much on touch-screen technology — but still firmly advocated investing in the developing technologies that are bringing the connected car to today’s consumer.

As he told Automotive News, “We want to move to the place where you have this enduring relationship with your Ford store just like your Apple store.”

Sounds like the car company wants to sell you the hardware and a lot of software that goes with it in the future. That being said, on the Sync side, Ford announced it sold over 5 million vehicles with that system in the last five years.

Echoing the CEO, Chief Technology Officer Paul Mascarenas noted, “The car is a rich source of real-time data and when combined with the processing power available in the cloud, it could become the smartest device you will ever own.”

Check out more full coverage, read the Automotive News article for more from Alan Mulally here and see the CE Outlook story with quotes from Ford CTO Paul Mascarenas here.